Dragons of the Watch (27 page)

“The bleeding has slowed.” Ellie dabbed at Porky’s wound with another clean cloth.

“There’s an apothecary a few blocks over.” Bealomondore looked up from washing Cinder’s face. “We could walk over there and get some sticking plaster.”

“Where are the dragons of the watch?” Ellie looked up and down the street as if they would suddenly appear. “It would be handy if they kept tabs on us instead of on all the empty parts of the city.”

“Are you proposing to organize the little band?”

“I bet they have followed the same routine for decades.”

“You’re probably right, but I don’t know how easily they can be persuaded to adopt another schedule.”

Ellie pushed on the boy leaning against her. “Come on, Porky. We’re going to take a walk.”

Soo-tie jumped up to go with them. “Does he need stitches? Are there stitches at that place? Are you going to make stitches? What kind of stitches? Like sewing? Eww! Will it hurt?”

Porky scowled at the girl and put up clenched fists. “You think I’m going to cry. I’m not. So you won’t have a thing to tell on me.”

“Hush, children,” said Ellie. She patted Porky’s shoulder. She had to look up to see his face, but she determined to treat him just like Gustus.
“You chomp down on all those angry words. Think of something nice to say. You too, Soo-tie.”

Cinder snickered.

Ellie pointed a finger at the boy tagging along. “You aren’t out of it, Cinder. You think of something nice to say to both Porky and Soo-tie.”

Cinder made a face like he smelled cooking cabbage. “I don’t know anything nice to say.” He glowered at Soo-tie. “You go first.”

She lifted her chin and let a smug smile set on her lips. “I do know something nice to say. Since you chose me to go first, you know I’m smarter than either of you two. Else you wouldn’t have said for me to go first.”

“That’s squatty poop,” yelled Cinder.

“Hold it!” Ellie’s voice sounded loud and clear. “No one is to say another word until I give you permission.”

The three children clamped their mouths shut.

“Soo-tie, I appreciate your willingness to be first. However, you didn’t make it clear that you admire Cinder’s choice because
he
is clever enough to recognize that you are gifted in conversation and would be perfect to be the first to try a new way of speaking.”

“Huh?” said Cinder and Soo-tie.

Bealomondore winked at Ellie. “She means since Soo-tie talks more than the boys, then she probably could talk the way Miss Clarenbessipawl wants her to.”

“How does she want us to talk?” asked Porky.

“She wants you to talk in a way that makes the person talked to feel good.”

Puzzled glances passed between all three children.

“Why?” asked Cinder.

“Remember what I told you?” said Ellie. “You are going to learn to enjoy life. You will find it is good instead of bad, fun instead of boring, and safe instead of dangerous.”

Porky snorted. “Talking like you want us to is going to do all that?”

The other two snickered.

“Speaking politely will put you on the right road. Instead of being covered with the slime of destruction, you will be lifted above the mire.”

The three children turned to Bealomondore.

“She means that every time you speak in the way she doesn’t like, it’s like you fall in the mud. It gets in your clothes, in your hair, in your mouth. Sometimes it gets in your eyes and makes it hard for you to see. Sometimes it clogs up your ears so you can’t hear.”

“And if we talk like she wants us?” asked Soo-tie.

“The more you talk her way, the more dirt and grime and muddy slime drop off you.”

The children looked at themselves and the grubbiness that clung to each of them.

“This stuff washes off,” said Porky. “We don’t have to talk different. We just have to jump in the fountain.”

Bealomondore smiled. “Ah, but it’s not the dirt and mud you can see that is the problem.”

Cinder narrowed his eyes and looked suspiciously at the male tumanhofer. “What do you mean?”

“It’s invisible,” said Ellie.

“Invisible
and
”—Bealomondore let his voice drop to a deep, solemn whisper—“it goes inside you and sticks to your innards. Particularly your heart.”

“And in your blood,” added Ellie.

“You can’t wash it off,” said Bealomondore with a sad shake of his head.

“It has to wear off.” Ellie nodded with encouragement. “Sometimes it does fall off in chunks, but then you can’t see it, so you don’t know by what you see whether it’s here or there.”

Cinder blustered. “If I can’t see it, why should it worry me?”

“Because of what it does.”

Cinder held out his hands, covered with grime and dried blood from his nose. “It’s just dirt. It don’t do anything. Just because I can’t see it doesn’t make it more dangerous than plain dirt. If you’re trying to trick me into a bath, it’s not going to work.”

“A bath?” asked Bealomondore with a more vigorous shake of his head. “Hadn’t even crossed my mind.”

Porky looked at Ellie. “Are we going to be late for noonmeal?”

“I don’t think so.”

“We’re almost there,” said Bealomondore.

Ellie patted Porky’s arm. “I’m going to give each of you a sentence to say. We’ll practice saying nice things.”

“I don’t want to,” said Porky. “I have a wound.”

“The wound isn’t in your mouth,” said Bealomondore.

“I’m tired and hungry, and I don’t feel like talking like she wants me to. Why should I?”

Ellie heaved a giant sigh.

Bealomondore’s face became a mask of formidable adult determination. “Miss Clarenbessipawl, give him his sentence.”

“All right, Porky. This really won’t be hard.” She paused. “Your sentence is, ‘Thank you for staying to help me, Miss Clarenbessipawl.’ ”

Porky’s face darkened, and he didn’t say a word.

Bealomondore stepped in front of him, turned abruptly, and stopped. He spoke between clenched teeth. “Thank you for staying to help me, Miss Clarenbessipawl.”

Porky clenched
his
teeth while still glowering at Bealomondore. With his chin still looking like a donkey’s jawbone, he growled out, “Thank you for staying to help me, Miss Clarenbessipawl.”

Bealomondore’s face immediately melted from ice to sunshine. He thudded Porky on the shoulder, announced, “Good job,” and turned to Soo-tie.

“What do you have for our brave Soo-tie, Ellie?” Ellie smiled. “Cinder, I’m sorry you had a nosebleed, and I’m glad it stopped.”

Horror washed across Soo-tie’s face. “I don’t care if he had a nosebleed. That’s his goings-on, not mine.”

Bealomondore spoke before Ellie could begin the lecture forming in her head.

He put his arm around Soo-tie’s shoulders and gave a friendly squeeze. “That is one of the keys to what Miss Clarenbessipawl is talking about.”

“What? What is she talking about? She talks a lot.”

“This one is, ‘You are going to learn to enjoy life. You will find it is good instead of bad, fun instead of boring, and safe instead of dangerous.’ ”

“Huh?”

“You can’t enjoy life unless you can see good, have fun, and be safe. First key! Are you ready for it?”

Soo-tie looked skeptical, but she didn’t say anything to stop Bealomondore. Ellie wondered what the key would be.

“You are not alone,” he announced. “First key is that you do not live without others. First key is that you are blessed with people around you. First key is that you are not alone.”

Soo-tie stopped in the street. Bealomondore stopped as well, and so did the other three.

“Look around you, Soo-tie,” Bealomondore instructed her as he slowly turned her in a circle. “Who do you see?”

“You, her, Porky, and Cinder.”

“Excellent. Now you must realize that it is good that you are not alone. What would it be like if none of the other children were here?”

Porky wiggled in Ellie’s grasp. “She’d get more to eat at noonmeal.”

Bealomondore threw a comment over his shoulder. “There probably would not be enough for others if she were the only one.”

“Oh,” said Porky with a distinct air of disappointment.

Bealomondore turned back to the girl and his point. “What if there were no children here but you, Soo-tie? No one to talk to, no one to run with, no one during the night when it’s dark.”

He waited. Ellie leaned forward, anticipating the girl’s response.

Bealomondore asked, “Would that be good?”

Soo-tie shook her head.

“You are so right, Soo-tie. Having people around is a good thing. Because you are smart, you can see that the other children being here is a good thing.”

They started down the street again.

“I can have fun all by myself,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but it is the law of the universe, Soo-tie, that some things are more fun when done with others. You can’t dispute that. On occasion, the addition of more players multiplies the fun.”

She nodded vaguely. Ellie figured she’d have to think that one over for a while. Soo-tie probably couldn’t add or subtract, let alone multiply. However, Bealomondore’s grand way of explaining ideas made them sound acceptable.

Soo-tie looked with big, wondering eyes at Bealomondore. “The others make me safe?”

Ellie answered. “When all of you learn manners, you will be safe. Because manners are the demonstration of respect for one another. Respect for one another grows courage. Respect sprouts determination to preserve what is good. Respect builds love and compassion.”

Three sets of eyes again turned to Bealomondore.

“She’s saying that manners help you be good, and when you’re good, others tend to be good too, and pretty soon you will all be good to one another except when you make mistakes. Then one of you will choose to be good about the mistake, and that starts everyone being good again.”

Porky looked very doubtful. “And all of this good is not boring?”

“Not boring at all,” Bealomondore reassured him.

Porky hunched his shoulders and let them drop. “We’ll see. I’m not sure manners are going to be fun.”

“Me neither,” said Cinder.

“I bet we miss noonmeal,” said Porky.

Ellie sighed. Bealomondore winked at her.

He pointed. “There’s the apothecary.”

Ellie used her fingertips to brush Porky’s hair out of his eyes. “Now keep your hands away from the wound. Don’t pick. Don’t scratch. The sticking plaster will keep the sides of the cut together until Laddin can heal it tomorrow.”

Porky reached for the plaster on his head. “Who’s Laddin?”

Ellie batted his hand away. “A dragon of the watch.”

“A real dragon?” Soo-tie asked.

Bealomondore looked over his shoulder at the three children. His attention had been on the rows and rows of small medicine bottles. “Yes, a real minor dragon, not a bird.”

“Fairy tales,” said Soo-tie.

Porky squinted a glare at Bealomondore. “We know about fairy tales.”

Ellie put a hand under Porky’s chin and turned his face back to look at her. “What do you know about fairy tales?”

Cinder balanced on one foot with his arms sticking out. “They aren’t true.”

Soo-tie plopped down on the floor. “Pepper used to tell fairy tales every night.”

Ellie thought Soo-tie sounded sad. “She doesn’t anymore?”

“
He
doesn’t anymore.”

“He’s gone,” said Porky.

Ellie almost asked where he’d gone and then realized that the child must have died. She busied herself cleaning up the bits and pieces left over from plastering Porky’s cut.

“When did he leave?” asked Bealomondore.

Three little bodies gave three shrugs.

“A week ago,” said Cinder.

“Nah,” said Porky. “Longer. Two weeks ago.”

Ellie and Bealomondore looked to Soo-tie for a comment. She shrugged again, perhaps with a little more vigor than the first time.

Ellie knew fairy tales as well. Maybe some of them might be ones these children recognized. “Do you remember any of the names of the fairy tales?”

Soo-tie nodded, and her face lit up. “ ‘Rando and the Blue Fan.’ ‘Koomee-Kootah.’ ‘The Hill on the Mountain.’ ‘Five Little Brothers.’ ”

Porky bounced on the stool he sat upon. “ ‘Seven Tin Cups.’ ”

“ ‘Nine Days of Trouble,’ ” sang Cinder.

“I’m afraid I don’t know any of those.” Ellie looked at Bealomondore. “Do you?”

He shook his head.

“Can we go now?” asked Porky. “It’s awful close to noonmeal.”

“Yes,” said Ellie, “but meet us here tomorrow.”

They charged out the front door, leaving Ellie and Bealomondore to examine the contents of the shelves, taking note of things they might need in the future.

Ellie held up a squat green jar. “Here’s some ointment for Old One’s sore knees.”

“Look at this shelf.”

Ellie came to stand beside Bealomondore. “Bug pills?”

Bealomondore grinned and picked up one that read “Powdered
Eggstram Snails.” He shook it, held it up to the light, and turned the bottle to see how much it contained.

“What are Eggstram Snails good for?” asked Ellie.

“Temper tantrums in toddlers, anxiety in adults.”

“I think I’d throw a temper tantrum if you suggested I consume that powder.”